Oldest public park in New York City
General Information
Overview
Bowling Green is a small public park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, at the southern end of Broadway. Located next to the site of the original Dutch fort of New Amsterdam, it served as a public place before being designated as a park in 1733. It is the oldest public park in New York City and is surrounded by its original 18th-century fence. It included an actual bowling green and an equestrian statue of King George III prior to the American Revolutionary War.
Bowling Green is surrounded by numerous buildings, including the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, International Mercantile Marine Company Building, Bowling Green Offices Building, Cunard Building, 26 Broadway, and 2 Broadway. The Charging Bull sculpture is located on its northern end, while Battery Park is located to the southwest. The park is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places under the name Bowling Green Fence and Park. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, an NRHP district created in 2007.
The park is a teardrop-shaped plaza formed by the branching of Broadway as it nears Whitehall Street. It has a fenced-in grassy area with a large fountain in the center, surrounded by benches that are popular at lunchtime with workers from the nearby Financial District.
The south end of the plaza is bounded by the front entrance of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which houses the George Gustav Heye Center for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan Division). Previously there was a public street along the south edge of the park, also called "Bowling Green", but since this area was needed for a modern entrance to the park's eponymous subway station, the road was eliminated and paved over with cobblestones. The New York City Subway station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, opened in 1905 and serving the 4 and 5 trains, is located under the plaza. Entrances dating from both 1905 and more recent renovations are located in and near the plaza.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia articles "Bowling Green (New York City)", which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
